The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A.)

• from a network of information providers
– user must find information sources
– user must integrate information
• to a network of service providers
– agents find requested & unanticipated information for the user
– agents perform requested and implied services for the user
– agents present finished product to user

•
Ubiquity
• Fitness
• Constructability
• Policy

Mobile Communication of Heterogeneous Agents
• Anytime, Anywhere
Interfaces
• Context-sensitive preference management
• Integrates Devices and
Agentified Services www.cs.cmu.edu/~softagents/mocca.html

• Any Time - Any Place Computing
– Agents accessible from any device
– Information conveyed on most appropriate device
– Information conveyed at most appropriate time
• Unobtrusive Computing
– Reduce the overhead of humans having to specify their intentions
– Agents proactively assist humans based on their awareness of the user’s goals and context

• Ubiquity
•
Fitness
• Constructability
• Policy

• Security in Agent Communities www.cs.cmu.edu/~softagents/security.html
• Secure Agent Infrastructure www.cs.cmu.edu/~softagents/security_agent.html
Security Applications
• wireless collaboration and communications
• military logistics planning
• financial portfolio management
• non-combatant evacuation operation

• Ubiquity
• Fitness
•
Constructability
• Policy

• Open and Dynamic Environments
– agents / services will not always exist
– agent locations change
• system load balancing
• agent mobility
– agent identity changes
• cannot predict its name
• cannot predict the vocabulary used to describe it
• Assume Service Redundancy
– multiple/ competing service providers
– differentiate on service parameters
• speed, price, security, reliability, reputation, etc.

• Truly reusable software components
• Accessible to lay-programmers
– intuitive and imprecise
• Scalable, reliable, robust, and fault-tolerant computing
• Program by high-level service requirement descriptions
Example:
To find the best flights,
– find any airline reservation system
– that publishes departure / arrival times
• of four or more commercial airlines and
• comparative prices for those legs.

MAS Infrastructure
MAS Interoperation
Translation Services Interoperator Services
Individual Agent Infrastructure
Interoperation
Interoperation Modules
Capability to Agent Mapping
Middle Agents
Capability to Agent Mapping
Middle Agent Components
Name to Location Mapping
Agent Name Service
Security
Certificate Authority Cryptographic Service
Name to Location Mapping
ANS Component
Security
Security Module Private/Public Keys
Performance Services
MAS Monitoring Reputation Services
Multi-Agent Management Services
Logging Activity Visualization Launching
ACL Infrastructure
Public Ontology Protocol Servers
Performance Services
Performance Service Modules
Management Services
Logging and Visualization Components
ACL Infrastructure
Parser, Private Ontology, Protocol Engine
Communications Infrastructure
Discovery Message Transfer
Communication Modules
Discovery Message Transfer Modules
Operating Environment
Machines, OS, Network, Multicast Transport Layer, TCP/IP, Wireless, Infrared, SSL

• Local Area Network Discovery
– SSDP, SLP
• Wide Area Network Discovery
– Agent-to-Agent Discovery
• Network Security
– protection from malicious attacks and spoofing
– Encryption, Authentication, Repudiation
• Agent Location Schemes
– White Pages, Yellow Pages, LDAP

User 1 User 2
Goal and Task
Specifications
Interface Agent 1 Interface Agent 2
Tasks
Task Agent 1 Task Agent 2
User u
Results
Interface Agent i
Task Agent t
Solutions
Info & Service
Requests
Information Integration
Conflict Resolution
Queries
Middle Agent 2
Information
Agent 1
Advertisements
Info
Source 1
Info
Source 2
Replies
Information
Agent n
Answers
Info
Source m

• Solicit input from user for the agent system
• Present output to the user
• Frequently part of task agent
• Often representative of a device

• Know what to do and how to do it
• Responsible for task delegation
• May enlist the help of other task agents

• Infrastructure agents that aid in MAS scalability
• Many have been identified in Sycara & Wong ‘00
• Most common:
– Agent Name Service (White Pages)
– Matchmaker (Yellow Pages)
– Broker
– MAS Interoperator

• Enable an agent to find another agent:
• by functionality, capability, availability, time to completion, etc.
• without knowing who or where the provider agent might be
• Enables multi-agent systems [MASs]:
• to dynamically reconfigure themselves to suite a need
• reduce agent systems administration overhead
• to scale in the number of agents that are distributed in a computer network
• RETSINA has two main types of Matchmakers:
• RETSINA Matchmaker
• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~softagents/matchmaker.html
• Please try it: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~softagents/a-match/index.html
• LARKS Matchmaker
•
L anguage for A dvertisement and R equest for K nowledge S haring
• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~softagents/larks.html

Requester
2. Request for service
Matchmaker
3. Unsorted full description of (P
1
,P
2
, …, P k
)
1. Advertisement of capabilities
& service parameters
4. Delegation of service
5. Results of service request Provider 1 Provider n

• Translate between MAS architectures:
• Advertisements
• Queries and replies
• Informational messages
• Achieve economic MAS scalability

• Present information sources to MAS
• Port MAS output to external data stores
• Represent data and events
• Four well-known and reusable behaviors:
– Single-Shot Query
– Active Monitor Query
– Passive Monitor Query
– Update Query

R eusable E nvironment for T askS tructured I ntelligent N etworked A gents
Four parallel threads :
• Communicator
• for conversing with other agents
• Planner
• matches “sensory” input and “beliefs” to possible plan actions
• Scheduler
• schedules “enabled” plans for execution
• Execution Monitor
• executes scheduled plan
• swaps-out plans for those with higher priorities http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~softagents/retsina.html

• Ubiquity
• Fitness
• Constructability
•
Policy

Contact Information:
Prof. Katia Sycara
Principle Investigator
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A.)
Tel: +1 (412) 268-8825
Fax: +1 (412) 268-5569 katia+@cs.cmu.edu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~katia
Joseph Giampapa
Project Manager
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 (U.S.A.)
Tel: +1 (412) 268-5245
Fax: +1 (412) 268-5569 garof+@cs.cmu.edu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~garof